Handicap
by CardinalPerch
Summary: When the team is called to Baltimore to assist on a difficult case, an unexpected turn of events threatens one agent's future. Rated T for mild language, violence. Prentiss-centric, but features entire team. Long ONESHOT.


_This popped into my head while I was watching a completely unrelated movie the other day. I was bored, so I decided to write it down. Originally intended as a threeshot, but once I got going I couldn't stop, so now it's a really long oneshot. _

_This takes place a year or two in the future. It follows CM cannon with the major exception that Emily doesn't leave at the end of Season 7. _

Prentiss gazed absentmindedly at passing vehicles and pedestrians as Morgan guided the black SUV down a residential street in the outskirts of Baltimore. It was their second day working the case of an unsub who was terrorizing neighborhoods in and around the city with a spree of seemingly random ambush-style killings. The unsub approached people walking alone at night and shot them at point-blank range. Six people were killed before the Baltimore Police finally called in the BAU.

So far, the unsub had proven infuriatingly elusive and difficult to profile. The team deduced that the killer was most likely male, but in the world of serial killers and spree killers such a deduction was hardly surprising or useful. In most important categories for classification, the killer was all over the map. His victims varied in age, race, sex, and socioeconomic status and the time intervals between the murders fluctuated drastically. Though the unsub always used a gun, he did not always use the same type of firearm. Between the six crime scenes, investigators had discovered shell casings of four different calibers. There were no witnesses to the killings. He hunted in isolated areas. He killed and fled the scene in a matter of seconds. It was likely that even the victims were unaware of his presence before he shot them.

The only reason that the police knew the same killer was responsible for the crimes was the fact that the unsub left a single black ink pen next to each body before quickly making his escape. Yet even this signature provided no useful information. The pens were of a standard variety and could be purchased cheaply at nearly any store. They yielded no fingerprints.

It had been a long time since the team encountered an unsub this difficult to profile. Luckily, no new victims had been killed since the team took the case, but even this fact yielded a troubling paradox: the team needed to catch the unsub before he killed anyone else, but in order to have any hope of establishing a useful profile, they would need more bodies.

They spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon analyzing and reanalyzing evidence to no avail. For the rest of the day, the team helped man the tip lines, growing increasingly frustrated as one useless piece of information after the next rolled in. JJ had gone ballistic on a man who called to say that he had no idea who had perpetrated the killings, but he was quite certain his next-door neighbor had poisoned his cat.

At nearly 8:30 p.m., Prentiss received a call from a young college student who claimed he heard a classmate named Michael Cruise joking about how the police were inept buffoons who were never going to stop the killer. Prentiss seriously doubted the information meant anything – people made insensitive jokes about major new stories all of the time. Nonetheless, she took down the information the student provided and shared it with Morgan. At least it gave her something to do.

Morgan agreed that the information was almost certainly useless, but he and Prentiss decided to check it out anyway. Both of them were incredibly irritable due to the lack of progress and thought that one more tangent from Reid about the origins and history of the ballpoint pen might set them off. After clearing it with Hotch, the two checked out a Bureau SUV and headed to the address of Cruise's parents. Naturally, Morgan drove. He was always adamant about being the one to drive, unless Hotch happened to be with them. Prentiss was content to ride along in the passenger's seat. She was indifferent about driving unless the only other options were Reid or JJ. JJ hated driving, and Prentiss was pretty sure it was safer to let an unsub pilot the vehicle than to ride shotgun with Reid.

It was a roughly 25 minute drive from Baltimore Police headquarters to the address of the Cruise home. Both Morgan and Prentiss wanted to get the interview out of the way quickly so they could go home. Because of Baltimore's relatively close proximity to DC, the team declined to check into a hotel. As Emily thought vaguely of curling up with Sergio in a few hours, Morgan pondered how many hours of his life he had spent behind the wheel of an FBI vehicle before deciding he really didn't want to know.

"Hey Prentiss, do you ever wonder how much better our dating lives would be if we didn't work so many hours at this job?" Morgan asked, grinning.

"I really prefer not to, thanks. Although, in your case it might help to think about how many more women you've gotten to come home with you by flashing that badge of yours," she quipped.

"Oh come on now," he replied, feigning hurt feelings. "The ladies love Derek Morgan. He doesn't need any help."

"Well I sure hope it isn't the talking about himself in the third person that attracts them, or I'll have to give up all hope for the female species."

Morgan jokingly slapped himself in the face as he pulled up to the side of the street in front of Cruise's address. It was dark outside, but the neighborhood was well-lit thanks to an abundance of street lamps. Prentiss exited the vehicle and began to approach the modest two-story brick home while Morgan walked around the front of the SUV to catch up to her. Suddenly, they heard the front door open violently. On the porch, Prentiss saw a figure she recognized as Michael Cruise from the photo Garcia provided. His shaggy black hair was disheveled. He was wielding a shotgun.

"Morgan, get back!" Prentiss yelled.

Seeing the cause for her alarm, Morgan ducked behind the SUV and Prentiss scrambled around the front of the vehicle to join him in taking cover. The sound of gunshots rang out.

"Shit!" Prentiss yelled.

"Are you hit?" Morgan cried out.

"Yeah," she replied, using her arms to pull herself the rest of the way around the vehicle. "It's alright, it's just my leg."

Another shout rang out and shattered window glass rained upon their heads. Morgan quickly seized the opportunity. Springing to his feet, he aimed his Glock through what used to be the front windows of the SUV and fired two shots. One found its target, striking Cruise in the shoulder. But before Morgan could land a knockout shot, Cruise scrambled back inside the house. Knowing it was too dangerous to chase Cruise inside, Morgan again ducked behind the vehicle. Prentiss was already calling for backup on her radio.

"This is SSA Emily Prentiss with the FBI. I need backup at 921 Baywater Street. Armed suspect has fired on federal agents. Suspect is holed up inside the residence. SWAT presence requested."

"Prentiss, aren't you going to call for an ambulance?" Morgan asked incredulously. He was convinced that her survival wasn't immediately at stake, but her leg did not look good. Cruise's shot appeared to have hit her somewhere near the left knee. Even though it was dark and she was wearing black slacks, Morgan could see the blood gushing from the wound as well as glimpses of white and gray matter than he strongly suspected was bone.

"Morgan, it's too dangerous for an ambulance to come in here," Emily reasoned, clearly straining to mask what Morgan knew must be agonizing pain. "We have to take Cruise out first. Otherwise the medics will be sitting ducks."

"_We _are not doing anything Prentiss. You're can't do anything on that leg. And you can at least call the ambulance so that they're on standby."

Grabbing his own radio he called in the additional information. "This is SSA Derek Morgan, FBI, at 921 Baywater. I affirm the previous call from Agent Prentiss, but I also need medics on standby, I have a federal agent down."

At his last comment, Prentiss scoffed audibly. "Agent down? Really Morgan? I'm not dying here."

"No, you've already done that, haven't you?" he said with a mixture of sarcasm and bitterness. Prentiss's encounter with Ian Doyle and seven months of feigned death (and, Morgan couldn't help but remind himself, minute or so of actual death) may have been a wound that finally healed over, but the scab was ever present. "Now will you stop fighting me for one second so I can call Hotch?"

Morgan retrieved his cellphone from the pocket of his black leather jacket and dialed the Unit Chief.

"Morgan," Hotch answered in an even-keeled yet hurried tone of voice. "We heard your calls. We're on our way. What happened?"

"Hotch, Cruise is the unsub. He came out firing a shotgun. I hit him, but he's retreated back into the house. I haven't heard or seen him move since, but he got Emily."

"How is she?"

Morgan glanced over at his partner. He was reassured to see her glaring at him defiantly, silently repudiating him for fretting so much over her when there was an unsub afoot. But her face was also turning a shade of ghastly white and her black hair was matted to her cheeks by streams of sweat. Although she was doing a hell of a job fighting the pain, Morgan could see that she was slowly slipping into shock.

"She's not in any immediate danger, but Hotch her leg is mangled up pretty bad."

"Alright," Hotch replied. "Sit tight. The nearest backup is only a few minutes away. We'll be there soon."

"You got it," Morgan said. He could already here the wailing of sirens nearby.

"And Morgan?"

"Yeah Hotch?"

"Do not let Prentiss try to get up."

"Oh, don't worry. There's no way that's happening."

Morgan ended the call and scooted up alongside Prentiss.

"Alright Emily, talk to me, how bad is it."

"I can't really tell, but honestly, it hurts like hell," Prentiss replied, biting her lower lip in an attempt to fight off waves of nausea. She had removed her black suit jacket and wrapped it tightly around the wound to stymie the bleeding. Some of the blood had stained the sleeves of her light blue button-up shirt. "This suit is definitely ruined, though," she replied, attempting simultaneously to reassure Morgan and distract herself from her own agony. "Guess I have an excuse to go shopping again."

Morgan smiled and raised his eyebrows despite himself. He was still amazed at her ability to keep special brand of sarcastic humor at times like this.

A moment later, two Baltimore PD squad cars arrived and four officers scrambled to Morgan and Prentiss's side, keeping themselves concealed behind the protective barrier now formed by the line of vehicles. Morgan briefed them on the situation. One of the officers used a megaphone to inform Cruise that he was surrounded and ought to surrender. When the request was met with silence, all agreed that it was best to wait for the SWAT team instead of conducting a blind raid on the home.

Not long after, Hotch, Rossi, Reid, and JJ arrived in another Bureau SUV. Clad in Kevlar, the four quickly made their way over to Morgan and Prentiss.

"Gosh Emily, that looks bad," JJ remarked, betraying heavy concern.

Still fighting desperately against shock, Emily did her best to keep her composure in front of her team.

"I'm fine," she attempted to reassure her friend. "Remember, Dr. Reid here took a shot to the knee and popped back up in no time."

"Actually I was shot below the knee and with a much smaller weapon," Reid remarked. "You know, statistically speaking…"

"Spence, stop," JJ interrupted firmly but not unkindly. "We're kind of in the middle of a situation here."

"Sorry," Reid murmured.

"Prentiss," Hotch interjected, the authoritative tone of his voice commanding complete attention, "I've coordinated with the medics and SWAT. The ambulance will pull in alongside the SWAT vehicle, which will block it from the line of fire. The medics will extricate you as quickly as possible. After that we'll try one last time to convince Cruise to come out before we turn the SWAT team loose."

"I'm going with her," Morgan opined.

"No, Morgan. I'm fine. Stay here."

"No Emily, I think it's a good idea," Rossi interjected. He knew Morgan would only be distracted by his concern for Prentiss if he stayed behind. "We've got it under control, Morgan. Go."

The ambulance arrived, the medics keeping it carefully concealed behind the SWAT truck. Two men worked quickly to remove a gurney and backboard from the back of the ambulance. Prentiss clenched her jaw. There was no way she was going to let those guys lift her on to the gurney like some damsel in distress. Gritting her teeth against the pain what she knew was to come. She lifted herself off the ground and attempted to stand.

"No!"

"Emily!"

"Don't!"

Every member of her team seemed to yell out simultaneously.

Prentiss staggered forward and attempted to hobble gently on her leg. For all the good it did her, her left knee might as well be made out of jelly. She promptly collapsed face first onto the pavement and let out a cry of pain that was somewhere between a growl and a scream. She continued to writhe in agony as fresh waves of pain emanated outward from her knee through the rest of her lower body.

"Agent Prentiss!" one of the medics cried out. "Stay still, just stay still for a second. This is a pain killer and mild sedative, it'll help," he said, whipping a syringe from his bag.

"I don't need that," Prentiss insisted, taking a weak swipe at the medic's arm. Shock had finally set in. The pain had made her almost completely delirious.

"Emily! Emily! Stop it!" Morgan cried out. He feared that a continued struggle would inadvertently expose them to line of fire. Knowing she would hate him for it later on, Morgan pinned her down long enough for the medic to insert the syringe into her vein. The dosage had an effect almost immediately. While Prentiss didn't quite lose consciousness, she did lose the capacity to resist. Morgan helped the medics secure his now docile partner to the backboard, lift her onto the gurney, and whisk her into the back of the ambulance. He then hopped in back alongside her for the ride to the hospital.

At the hospital, Morgan reluctantly elected to remain in the waiting room while the doctors tended to Prentiss. During the ambulance ride, she expended almost all of her energy fighting off sleep, so she was only able to mumble incoherently, but it was pretty clear she was pissed at him. He hoped that she'd be more inclined to cooperate with the doctors if he backed off for a little bit. He would check on her if he didn't hear something soon.

Meanwhile, he decided to give Garcia a call.

"Derek Morgan, you better be calling to give me good news about my E," the technical analyst answered snappily.

"Well Mama, she's pretty pissed off and her knee looks like a jigsaw puzzle, but she's stable. She's not in any danger."

"Oh thank goodness," Garcia responded, her relief palpable. "But exactly how bad is the leg? Will she make it home tonight or should I come up there?" Garcia inquired.

"I don't know yet. I'm not with her. She's a little upset with me. I pinned her down so the medics could sedate her. I think I need to give her a little space for a minute. Just hang out there and I'll keep you updated."

"You pinned her down?" Garcia asked incredulously. "You pinned Emily freaking Prentiss down?"

"Yes I did," he answered.

"Ohhhhh, Derek Morgan she is going to _kill _you."

"Yeah, well considering how things could have gone I think I'll take that," Morgan replied. "Speaking of, have you heard from Hotch or anybody else?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Hotch called me briefly to find out where they'd taken Emily. He didn't give me any details, but Cruise is dead and everybody else is okay. They're on their way to you right now."

Just as Garcia said this, Morgan spotted Hotch, Rossi, JJ, and Reid passing through the automatic double doors at the entrance to the emergency room.

"Yeah, I see them now," Morgan told Garcia. "I'm going to let you go, but I'll call you soon and let you know how she is."

"If you see her, be sure to stay out of swiping distance," Garcia chided. "She's finally managed to grow a respectable set of finger nails."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks Baby Girl," he said before ending the call.

"Hey, what happened?" Morgan greeted his team at the door.

They proceeded to explain the events that transpired after Morgan left with Prentiss. After trying unsuccessfully for over an hour to establish contact with Cruise, Hotch ordered the SWAT team to move in. They found Cruise dead in his upstairs bedroom. He had slit his wrists with a pocket knife. His parents were out of town. Investigators were still processing the scene, but from journals they'd recovered it appeared that Cruise was an extremely narcissistic and sociopathic criminology student who was driven by a combination of curiosity and pure hubris to try and commit unsolvable serial murders. He had planned and honed his approach for nearly two years before killing for the first time.

"The scary thing is he might have gotten away with this for a long time if his friend hadn't been a little overzealous about getting us that tip," JJ offered.

"You and Emily threw him off his game plan," Rossi picked up. "He recognized the SUV as law enforcement and panicked. He was so convinced his approach wouldn't fail that he hadn't planned any contingencies. He unraveled."

"We'll certainly be studying this one for quite some time," Reid commented. "He is disturbingly unique. He intentionally skewed the victimology and time frame. That's exceedingly rare. Maybe a first."

"Have you heard any word on Prentiss yet?" Hotch inquired.

Morgan was about to answer when a screaming voice that was all too familiar caught the team's attention.

"I don't give a shit what your scan says! I don't care what you think you can or can't do! Fix it!" Prentiss's voice rang clearly above the not inconsiderable noise of the emergency room.

The team simultaneously rushed out of the waiting room toward the sound, exchanging significant glances as they moved. They'd all seen Prentiss furious before, but even at her angriest she always maintained an edge of control. She controlled her emotions and reactions better than any of them, a reflection of both her upbringing as the child of hyperpolitical parents and her training as a cover agent, not to mention her naturally suborn personality. To hear her raging uncontrollably was a first.

A pair of hospital orderlies made to block the team from entering the patient area. Hotch flashed his badge with a commanding, almost menacing stare.

"FBI. One of my agents is back there. Step aside."

The orderlies did as told and the team made their way to the source of the commotion, nearly bowling over a roughly 60-year-old bespectacled physician as they entered the room.

"Prentiss, what the hell is wrong?" Morgan demanded.

Prentiss, now clad in sky blue scrubs with her hair pulled back and her heavily bandaged leg elevated on a bed, reprimanded herself for her moment of weakness and rushed to gain her composure. She couldn't believe she had allowed herself to lose control. The doctor's news had certainly shocked her. She refused to accept it. But she needed to keep things together. Otherwise she might start crying, and there was no way she was going to allow that to happen.

"Emily?" Rossi prompted.

She struggled to find the right words. She wasn't sure how to relay the news she'd just heard.

"I…My…I," she stammered before giving up and biting her lip in frustration, desperately attempting to fortify the dam that barely held her emotions in check.

"You tell them," she finally demanded of the doctor, her words laced with bitterness. "You're the expert here."

The physician was clearly taken aback. The last two minutes had clearly been thoroughly unpleasant for him. The team would have felt sorry for him if they hadn't been too anxious to hear his answer.

"Well, first of all, I'm Dr. Burroughs, Agent Prentiss's attending physician," he offered. When the team declined to return his greeting, he reluctantly continued. "We ran an X-ray and MRI. All results indicate that Agent Prentiss took a direct hit to the knee. Her patella is completely shattered as are fragments of the surrounding bone structures. I'm afraid there is fairly extensive nerve and muscle damage as well, some of which appears permanent."

"No," Reid interrupted. He turned to Prentiss with a gaze of shock and deep sorrow. She met his gaze with a resigned one her own.

"What?" Morgan snapped. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Prentiss swallowed, still battling to keep her emotions in check, "that I'll never walk on it again."

All of the team fell into a deep, stunned silence. All except Morgan.

"Bullshit," Morgan replied, gazing intensely at Prentiss.

"Morgan," Reid tried to intervene.

"Bullshit!" he screamed, turning his rage on the unfortunate doctor. "Fix it. Fix her!"

"Morgan," Reid said more emphatically. "He can't. Nobody can. Damage that extensive can't be undone."

"I'm terribly sorry," Burroughs insisted. "Truly I am."

"Thank you doctor," Hotch volunteered. "May we have a moment?"

"Of course," the shell-shocked physician answered, excusing himself from the room.

His departure was followed by several second of complete silence, broken at last by JJ.

"So, uh, what exactly does this mean?" the blonde profiler asked, not meeting the gaze of anyone in particular.

More silence followed, nobody volunteered to answer. Prentiss realized she herself would have to buck up and be the one to state what was quickly and painfully becoming the obvious.

"It means I'm done Jayje," she said, somehow finding the fortitude to look her friend in the eye. "I'm done at the FBI."

"Wait. No," JJ reacted angrily. "They can't do that! What are they going to do? Fire you?"

"They'll offer early retirement," Rossi answered.

Despite herself, Prentiss snickered derisively. She had never envisioned her life without working. Somehow the idea of retirement seemed more repulsive than the idea of just being fired.

"You can't be serious," JJ continued to protest. "Why does she have to be done? Even if she can't go into the field, she can still profile."

"JJ," Prentiss interrupted, "it's no use. There's no way the brass would approve of having essentially half of an agent in place of a full one."

"Half of you is better than anybody else they'll find," Reid retorted.

Prentiss almost lost her composure at this. It was unexpected. Of all of the members on the team, Reid was the one with whom she had the rockiest relationship. She loved him, and she knew he loved her, but they had struggled in the beginning to build mutual trust, only to have that trust completely destroyed and carefully rebuilt again, piece-by-piece in the aftermath of Doyle. That struggle made his friendship all the more meaningful. Yet she licked her bottom lip and again resisted the title wave of emotion. If she broke down now, she might never stop. Her FBI career was over. This was her fate, she had to accept it, and find a way to move on.

Yet some of her friends still weren't ready to drop the issue.

"Hotch?" JJ asked pleadingly, implicitly begging their leader to find a solution, to tell her they would make it work.

Hotch knew better. Prentiss was right. There was no way brass would continue to employ a physically unfit agent on his team. But even he couldn't muster up the strength to say it out loud. He simply looked sadly at Prentiss, then at JJ. The silence spoke volumes.

Morgan slammed his fist into the wall and stormed out of the room.

"Morgan? Morgan!" Prentiss called after him.

"Let him go, Emily," Rossi said. "He'll be alright. What about you? Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she lied. "Yeah, I'm fine now."

"Liar," he smiled at the incessant stubbornness of the woman he sometimes considered a surrogate daughter.

"Caught me," she admitted, returning a small smile of her own. "I'm not yet, but I will be."

"That, I don't doubt," he said.

Doctor Burroughs poked his head into the room nervously. He was palpably relieved to see that, while still upset, the agents no longer appeared to be prepared to deal him a blow to the face.

"Agents, I'm afraid we are going to have to get Ms. Prentiss up to surgery. We do need to clear up the bone fragments and patch things together as much as possible to ward off infection. We'll have her upstairs in recovery by morning."

JJ offered Prentiss a squeeze of the hand before departing. Prentiss couldn't help but notice that a few stray tears had escaped JJ's eyes. Reid offered a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, which was saying a lot for him. Hotch simply nodded.

Rossi stepped forward and gave Emily a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"See you in the morning kiddo," he said.

"Thanks Rossi."

"And it's Agent," Rossi said to Dr. Burroughs as he headed towards the door.

"Excuse me?" Burroughs asked.

"You're getting _Agent_ Prentiss up to surgery."

The following morning, Morgan tapped his fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel of his pickup truck as he made the trek North to Baltimore from Quantico. He had managed to calm himself down quite a bit from the night before. He was still devastated about Prentiss. The fact that she wouldn't walk again. The fact that she was done at the FBI. But he reminded himself that things could have been a lot worse. At least he wasn't losing her again.

Garcia sat in the passenger seat next to him. Morgan was surprised to see that she had recovered herself as well if not even better than he. Last night, when he called to tell her what happened, Garcia had been inconsolable. She sobbed wordlessly for a full two minutes before hanging up. Morgan hadn't been quite sure what to expect this morning, but it wasn't this. She was still somewhat somber. Yet, or some reason, Garcia also seemed determined, almost excited. Morgan was lost as to why.

"Okay Baby Girl, I can't take wondering anymore. Spit it out. What's into you today."

"Ooooh, very observant Mr. Profiler," Garcia teased. "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

"Alright, alright," he relented. "We're almost there."

Hotch and Rossi were already at the hospital when Morgan arrived with Garcia in tow. JJ and Reid showed up shortly thereafter. They were informed Prentiss was still sedated and resting, but they could see her soon. As they waited in the visitor's lounge, Garcia consumed cup after cup of bad hospital coffee.

"What's gotten into her this morning?" Rossi asked Morgan.

"No idea," Morgan admitted. "But I'd bet we find out soon."

After just over an hour, a nurse entered the lounge.

"Are you here for Agent Prentiss?"

"Yes," six voices answered in unison.

"She's awake, and doing well, although she's still on heavy medication and I imagine in a great deal of pain. It's a long procedure with a long recovery. Normally we wouldn't allow all of you in at once, but she's quite insistent. All I ask is that you remain quiet and try not to overwhelm her."

"Of course," Hotch answered.

"Okay, she's the second door down the hall to your left."

"Thank you," Hotch replied again.

One by one, the team filed into Prentiss's recovery room. She was still extremely pale. An IV carried fluids and pain medication into her left arm and her left knee appeared even more heavily bandaged than before. Morgan caught himself thinking she would probably have one hell of a scar to add to her collection.

Despite her obvious discomfort, she appeared happy and eager to see them.

"Hey guys," she greeted groggily.

Each returned a greeting in turn, save for Garcia who waited until the others were done.

"Hey Section Chief," the perky blonde greeted. Her response was immediately greeted by looks of pure confusion.

"Come again?" Prentiss inquired.

"Oh nothing, it's just that I used my goddess powers to find a way to keep you in the FBI and get you a nice shiny promotion on top of it."

"Baby Girl, what on Earth are you talking about?" Morgan asked.

"Well," she answered excitedly, "there I was last night balling my eyes out about what happened to Ems when I went to log out of my system and happened to see out of the corner of my eye a personnel search update from the Counterterrorism Department. It seems their Section Chief at Quantico is leaving to take some snazzy job as a lobbyist, and they're having a terrible time finding a qualified replacement. I thought to myself, 'Hmmm, I just happen to know a pretty awesome gal who used to profile terrorists for Interpol, speaks fluent Arabic, and is recently in the market for a new gig.' So, I called up the department head first thing in the morning and filled him in. The job is as good as yours."

"You're joking," JJ insisted.

"I am not," Garcia answered happily. "He actually said Prentiss's name had come up at one point but he heard it through the grapevine that there was no way in hell she'd leave the BAU, so he forgot about it."

"You called the head of Counterterrorism in the wee hours of a Saturday morning?" Hotch asked, with a mixture of admiration and disapproval.

"Yes sir, I did."

"Garcia, this is…amazing," Prentiss said, "but you are forgetting one thing. I can't walk anymore."

"I didn't forget that, it's the first thing I told him before embarking on my tangent about how awesome you are," Garcia answered. "He said your role is strictly limited to non field work, so it doesn't matter. Heck, look at Strauss. She's almost never out in the field. And let's face it, even when she is, you'd be as good with one arm and one leg as she is with all of her limbs in perfect condition."

"But that's another problem – Strauss," Prentiss interjected. "When Hotch and I came back on that Milwaukee case a few years ago against her orders, she said she'd make it a point to keep us from ever moving up the chain of command."

"Yeah, I remembered that too," Garcia dismissed happily. "I brought it up, and I believe his direct response was, 'When Erin Strauss can bitch to me about it in fluent Arabic, maybe I'll listen to her.'"

"So this is really happening?" Prentiss asked. She couldn't believe the news. If given the choice, she would have stayed with the BAU, even if it meant passing up a huge promotion. But she didn't have that choice, and this would keep her close to her friends, her family. She wasn't sure how to ever adequately thank Garcia for giving her a part of her life back.

"It is," Garcia responded. "And the current chief isn't leaving for at least another month or so, so you, my cupcake, can focus all of your energy on resting, even though I know that is inordinately difficult for you."

"Also, don't you dare thank me Emily Prentiss," she added, as if reading Prentiss's mind. "I did this for all of us, including me. Actually, mostly me. You're the only person who ever remembers my coffee orders."

"Penelope, you are amazing," Morgan commented.

"Oh trust me, I know," Garcia teased.

"Well, we better let the new chief get a bit of rest now," Hoch spoke up, smiling more widely than they'd seen him smile in ages. "After all, she's going to have to deal with a lot of politics soon."

Prentiss's face dropped.

"Very funny Hotch."

_2 Months Later_

Morgan and Reid purposely loitered near the entrance to the Quantico building. It was Prentiss's first day on her new job, and they planned to inaugurate her with some good old-fashioned harassment, BAU style.

"Here she comes," Reid said giddily. "She's getting a lot faster with that thing."

Prentiss advanced steadily toward the doors, right leg walking freely, left leg supported by a crutch now almost permanent lodged under her left shoulder. She had shunned the idea of using a wheel chair. True to Prentiss style, she was doing things the hard way, but her way.

As she made her way through the doors, Reid and Morgan launched their assault.

"Good morning Chief," Reid said stiffly, with mock seriousness.

"Agent Reid, don't you dare address me like that, ever," she feigned a seriousness of her own.

"Ooooohhhh, yes _ma'am_," Morgan retorted.

As the two men turned away snickering to head towards the BAU, they heard identical thunking noises as objects collided softly with the back of their heads. They looked behind them to see identical paper wads lying on the ground. Section Chief Emily Prentiss already had her back turned on them, headed off toward Counterterrorism.

Yes, Derek Morgan though, she was still their same old Emily Prentiss. And despite standing on one foot, she still had damn good aim.

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